Global Privacy Leaders React to Obama's NSA Reform Proposals

Global Privacy Leaders React to Obama's NSA Reform Proposals

President Barack Obama delivered a speech this morning on proposed reforms to the NSA’s mass surveillance program. To help illustrate what human rights and other organizations around the world are saying internationally, we have highlighted some excerpts that raise awareness of the need to protect the privacy rights of everyone everywhere, regardless of national boundaries:

Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

”Mass non-targeted surveillance violates international human rights law. It is disproportionate because it sweeps up the communications and communications records of million of innocent people first and only sorts out second what is actually needed. Obama’s reforms take a step forward in recognizing that foreigners deserve at least some privacy, but to be consistent with the rule of law, the NSA must be forbidden from engaging in mass, untargeted surveillance in the U.S. or abroad.”

Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA:

"The big picture takeaway from today's speech is that the right to privacy remains under grave threat both here at home and around the world. President Obama's recognition of the need to safeguard the privacy of people around the world is significant, but insufficient to end serious global concern over mass surveillance, which by its very nature constitutes abuse.”

US privacy advocates are right to conditionally welcome some of Obama’s reforms, but they should take into account two critically important implications that the President avoided. The first of these is the NSA’s intimate operational partnership with Britain’s SIGINT agency, GCHQ. Nothing in his reform package indicates a brake on the current arrangements which allow GCHQ to collect information on US persons. The second key element is that the proposals appear to merely shift the current collection and retention of metadata from a centralised NSA operation to more of a European-style communications data arrangement that requires commercial entities to maintain a distributed retention. That arrangement in Europe has been deemed unlawful, but there is every chance the US will adopt it. All things considered, the prospects for genuine intelligence reform at the global level are more bleak than they were 24 hours ago.

“The Obama administration deserves credit for recognizing in principle the importance of protecting foreigners' privacy rights. Unfortunately, this recognition in principle is unhelpful, as the President's Directive leaves the U.S. foreign intelligence apparatus' capacity to indiscriminately spy on all the activities of all foreigners all the time largely untouched.”

"The reforms proposed by President Obama fundamentally ignore those who are spied on simply because they don't have an American passport. We need genuine, effective changes that account for the way the world now communicates. Secret international intelligence-sharing arrangements must come to an end and human rights must be properly guaranteed to humans, not just American citizens."

Brett Solomon, executive director at Access:

“The human right to privacy is universal. The rights of persons outside of the United States are as fundamental as the rights of U.S. citizens. However, the President’s defense of ongoing overseas intelligence collection programs ensures that the citizens of the world will continue to be subject to mass surveillance.”

“Today's speech from President Obama marks a substantial step forward in addressing the serious concerns from EU Member States in relation to NSA activities on mass surveillance and spying. Whilst he has now recognised that there is a need for additional privacy protections in the US for EU citizens, his comments may not have been enough to restore confidence following the confusion and concern over surveillance and spying allegations in relation to EU citizens, EU Member States, EU leaders and EU Institutions. It is clear the language was substantial but there will be a clear pause before EU citizens and other non-US targets of NSA alleged surveillance can feel that they have been assured of protections in law.”

Katitza Rodriguez, EFF International Rights Director:

“Individuals should not be denied human rights simply because they live in another country from the one that is surveilling them. This is why EFF and hundred of NGOs are calling upon the public to sign the Necessary and Proportionate Principles. These 13 Principles establish a clear set of guidelines that define the human rights obligastions of governments engaged in communications surveillance. Tell Obama to put an end to mass surveillance of innocent individuals at home and abroad. Sign the Principles. Join the movement and tweet #privacyisaright”

Related Updates

For years, Xinjiang has been a testbed for the Chinese government’s novel digital and physical surveillance tactics, as well as human rights abuses. But there is still a lot that the international human rights community doesn’t know, especially when it comes to post-2016 Xinjiang. Last Wednesday, Human Rights Watch...

In a stunning rejection of the will of five million online petitioners, and over 100,000 protestors this weekend, the European Parliament has abandoned common-sense and the advice of academics, technologists, and UN human rights experts, and approved the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive in its entirety...

Hiperderecho, the leading digital rights organization in Peru, in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, today launched its second ¿Quien Defiende Tus Datos? (Who Defends Your Data?), an evaluation of the privacy practices of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that millions of Peruvians use every day. This year's...

Earlier this month, security researcher Victor Gevers found and disclosed an exposed database live-tracking the locations of about 2.6 million residents of Xinjiang, China, offering a window into what a digital surveillance state looks like in the 21st century. Xinjiang is China’s largest province, and home to China’s Uighurs...

Law enforcement access to data is in the middle of a profound shake-upacross the globe. States are pushing to get quicker, deeper, and more invasive access to personal data stored on the global Internet, and are looking to water down the international safeguards around privacy and due...

Update, January 18: EU ministers have failed to approve the compromise text—with Germany, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, and Portugal all voting against the current Article 13/11 proposal. Keep up the pressure! If you’re in the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Germany, Poland, Sweden...

To the extent that 260-page regulations can ever be said to be “famous,” Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) certainly had its moment in limelight in 2018. When it came into force on May 25, it was heralded by a flurry of emails from tech companies, desperate to re-establish their...

This year, we refocused our attention on Offline, our project that seeks to raise awareness of and provide actions readers can take to support imprisoned bloggers, digital activists, and technologists. Originally launched in 2015, Offline currently features six individuals from four countries whose critical voices have been silenced by...